Belarus 'Electrician' Sentenced to 13 Years in Prison for Extorting Bitcoins
The court sentenced a resident of Grodno to 13 years in prison for robbery and attempted extortion of cryptocurrency, the Belarusian prosecutor's office reported. According to investigators, in 2024, he and an accomplice, posing as electricians, entered the apartment of a Minsk resident, tortured him with a stun gun and threatened to kill him, demanding that he transfer 5,750 BTC (more than 1 billion Belarusian rubles).
The Minsk resident did not give in to the threats. Then the attackers tied him up and gave him 24 hours to comply with their demands. One of them was detained, the second managed to leave the country.
This is not the first case of cryptocurrency extortion involving violence. Last week, teenagers were charged in the US with kidnapping a person and extorting $4 million. In early May, criminals kidnapped the father of a crypto millionaire in France and demanded a ransom of €7 million. In January, Ledger co-founder David Balland was kidnapped in Paris, also with a ransom demand.
PLEASE BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHO YOU INFORM ABOUT YOUR ASSETS!!!
